Modern printers employ printheads with an increasingly large number of printing nozzles, in particular for wide-format printing. The image to be printed is usually processed in a printing pipeline, where a masking, changes to the image depending on the printer status, and pixel-to-drop translation may take place, and is then sent to the printhead at printing resolution via a printing data channel. The image at printing resolution may be rather large, and information needs to be sent to each nozzle of the printhead repeatedly and at high frequency. As the number of nozzles increases, the required bandwidth of the printing data channel needs to increase correspondingly. For instance, assume a 36 inches page-wide array printer that prints at 10 ips at 1200×1200 dpi. Information hence needs to be sent to 36 inch×1200 dpi×4 colors=172,800 nozzles at 10 ips×1200 dpi=12,000 times per second, resulting in a data transmission rate of more than 2 Gbits per second. The high data transmission rates require large channel bandwidths and sophisticated electronics to control the data handling, resulting in an increase in complexity and cost of the entire printing system.
What is needed is a printing system that allows to enhance the printing throughput without requiring corresponding enhancements in the channel bandwidth and electronics.